Penitent Penitentiary

I have not actually been in prison, but I've spent a total of three years in county jails. I keep careful track of all my minutes spent behind bars, so I know this for sure. So I'd say I have a little bit of room to lecture on prison.

Don't think I'm some sort of pervert or nothing. I only go to county jail for crimes I didn't commit, like drunk driving. I don't even own a car, so pinning a drunk driving charge on me is ridiculous. I may have been driving, but it's not my car. That has to be some sort of technicality. Two times it was a bicycle. You can't call that driving. In any case all the vehicles get returned to their owners, and I even paid the gas money.

I suppose if I had to go to prison for some non-drunk bicycling charge, I wouldn't want it to be any of the usual crimes. Drug dealing is probably the major reason why people are behind bars. A lot of people going to prison probably want to be in there for murder, like that will get them a break from the rough guys on the inside. I'd rather go to prison for doing something nobody else can do, like strangling an endangered species. The last of them. Then when they ask me why I killed the last black condor with my bare hands, I can just tell them, "He knows why." Then they'll never find out I didn't have a reason at all, and just wanted to see my name in the newspaper.

Do prisoners still get to wear denim? I miss denim. Nowadays prisoners are seen in public in those fancy-pants orange jumpsuits like they're fashion queen of England or something, ooh-la-la! I bet they spend all day beating the shit out of each other in prisons. You see an outfit like that on a man, you just want to beat the shit out of him. Even if you're wearing it, too.

If I do go to prison, I'll bet it'll be for a crime I didn't commit. That's what mom always said, but I think that was just her way of threatening me so I'd remember to turn the lights off when I leave a room.

Being a fugitive would be the best. Take off running, hopefully in denim and not a jumpsuit, and then you got to try to make it to the county line, since the North doesn't have an extradition treaty with the South yet. I'd make it across the Mason-Nixon line and then just stand there and laugh all day and night. Unless they send someone after me like a good friend or best buddy—getting my best friend to hunt me down, that would be just like the cops. Except I don't have any friends really. So the joke's on them. But I bet my mom would volunteer for the job.

It would be nice being in a gang, if I went to prison. I don't see why gangs in prison would be any less picky than gangs on the outside, but if I got into a gang, that would be good for me. We could watch each others' backs and we could even work the kitchen. That's where the majority of contraband comes in through, says mom.

Even if they didn't let me in, I would start my own gang. At first nobody would want to join, but I have a never-ending supply of cookies coming in from the outside. I'm in good with the Girl Scouts. If I could get to work the sewing room, my crew and me, I would make jackets for all my gang. Who's not with me now? No jacket for you, G-Dollar.

I'm getting real excited about this prison thing now.

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